“Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong,” Justin Pope reports for The Associated Press.
“In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 per cent of the industry’s domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus,” Pope reports.
“The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so,” Pope reports.
“But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a ‘human error’ in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 per cent of revenue loss.”
“Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses,” Pope reports. “‘Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total,’ he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn’t necessary.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Shawn P.” for the heads up.]
